To:MAXIM GORKY

Written:Written not earlier than May 9–10, 1913Published:First published in 1924 inLenin Miscellany I.

      Sent to Capri.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1976],

      Moscow,Volume 35,

      pages97-98.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Howdo you stand about a little article or a story for
theMayissue ofProsveshcheniye?They write to me from
there that they could publish10–15 thousand(that’s how we
are marching ahead!), if there were something from you.
Drop me a line whether there will
be.[1]ThenPravdareprints it, and we get 40,000 readers. Yes ... the affairs ofProsveshcheniyecould begin to prosper; otherwise theredoes not exist, devil take it, a single consistent journal
for the workers, for theSocial-Democrats, for revolutionary
democracy; nothing but rotten sour-pusses of one kind
or another.

Howis your health? Have you rested, and will you be
taking a rest in the summer? It is essential, my word on
it, that you should have agoodrest!

Thingsare not too well with me. The wife is down with
goitre. Nerves! My nerves are also playing me up a little.
We are spending the summer in the village of Poronin,
near Zakopane. (My address is: Herrn Wl. Ulianow,Poronin,
Galizien, Austria.) It’s a good place, and healthy. Height
about 700 metres. Suppose you took it into your head to
pay us a visit? There will be interesting workers from Russia.
Zakopane (seven versts from us) is a well-known health
resort.

Haveyou seen Demyan Bedny’sFables?[2]I will send
them if you haven’t. If you have, write and say what
you think of them.

Doyou getPravdaandLuchregularly? Our cause is
going ahead—in spite of everything—and the workers’ party
is being built up as arevolutionarySocial-Democratic party,
against the liberal renegades, the liquidators. We shall
have cause to celebrate one day. We are rejoicing just now
at the victory of the workers in Petersburg over the
liquidators when the Board of the new Metalworkers’
Union[3]was elected.

And“your” Lunacharsky is a line one!! Oh, what a fine
fellow! Maeterlinck, he says, has “scientific mysticism”....
Or Lunacharsky and Bogdanov are perhaps no longer yours?

Jokingapart.Keep well.Send me a couple of words.

Restas well as you can.

Yours,Lenin

Ulianow,Austria.Poronin(Galizien).

Howdid  you find   the  jubilee  number  ofPravda?[4]

[1]Inthe May 1913 issue ofProsveshcheniyethere are no works by
Gorky, but the June issue contains his story “Krazha” (“The
Theft”).

[2]Bedny,Demyan (Pridvorov, Y. A.) (1883–1945)—outstanding
Soviet poet, joined the Bolshevik Party in 1912. In 1911 he had begun
contributing to the Bolshevik newspapersZvezdaandPravda. His
poems and fables were fired with the spirit of the class struggle
against the capitalist system and its defenders. During the period
of foreign intervention and civil war Bedny went to the front as a
poet-agitator.

[3]Theelections of the Board of the Petersburg Metalworkers’ Union
took place on April 21 (May 4), 1913. The meeting was attended by
nearly 800 people and another 400 were unable to get in because
there was no room. The Bolsheviks submitted a list of candidates
for the Board that had been published inPravdaNo. 91 and was
distributed among those present. Despite the liquidators’ demand
that candidates should be elected “irrespective of trend”, the
majority of the meeting voted for thePravdalist; 10 out of the
14 successful candidates for the Board werePravdanominees.

[4]Referenceis toPravdaNo. 92, April 23, 1913, which contained
Lenin’s articles “Anniversary of Pravda” and “A Few Words on
Results and Facts”.